I could be a machine
Built by thousands of men
Staring at clipboards,
Statistics and spreadsheets
And another thousand
Staring at my chest.

I could be a lab-rat
Bred to play a game
I can only lose
While they laugh,
Joke and decide what
I can't do.

I could be a slave
Kept captive by stolen choices
Shocked into submission
By charged metal round my neck
Yet when I break down they're
Shocked by my weakness.

I could be a number
Manipulated to fit the
Wishes of our rich,
Powerful 'leaders'
Leading me against my
Wishes.

But I am a woman,
Not held or kept or built or lead,
Not confined to the blueprint
Of a designer in an office,
I am a woman
And I will be free

Water drips down my shoulders,
down my back and flat chest,
Clothing me in
A torrent of shimmering skin.
My ears are blocked for a moment,
Muffling the creaking
Of my weight shifting from one foot
To the other.
My eyes are closed,
Lest I see my reflection
In the rapidly steaming up windows
Turned mirrors in the night.
I cross my arms over myself,
But it does little more than
Remind me of the
Wreck I've become.
I try desperately to wash
Thoroughly without touching
My anatomy too much,
Letting gravity do its work as much
As I can,
Wondering if I should just
Ignore some places in favour of
Beating my mind
Into the wrong shape
Again.
But of course I must remain clean,
Even as my mind grows thick with
Grime, muck, blood,
That agony can be
Slept off,
Or hidden,
Or left to dry,
Or wiped away.

Sometimes I wonder
If I have stolen life from the world,
If my existence has a purpose
Or if it simply grinds against
The ever-turning gears of time,
Resisting the absolute certainty -
The inescapable reality that all
Must end,
Everything will fall apart,
And all I'm doing,
Is watching half a gasp
Of life's refusal to die.

We put our teenage lives on hold
And played like we were twenty
We went through phases
With every change of clothes
We sat outside, talked and felt alive,
And wasted our nights
Just to get back at life.

I can't stop now,
I'm looking out for you
In every shade of the sky
Every hint of spring reminds me
Of the warmth of your smile -
I can't stop now,
No, now I'm spending all my time,
Waiting.

We can't stop now,
We're running out of breath
As two lost souls unite
As I find my comfort
With your lips on mine -
Now the words flow,
No, please, Never let me go,
I'm waiting.
Waiting.
Resting in your arms.

I don't want to write another poem about your eyes
But every morning when you wake up
And let them drift open,
Is like a second sunrise
And every night,
As you fall into dreams,
I can just sit there for a while,
And hear as the very earth,
Breathes slow and rests with you.

So stay with me tonight,
In the dark, be my light,
And gently,
With but a whisper,
If at all,
May I repeat my worship
Of two glistening gasps of creation.

An industrial fan drags my hair across my face
As I lean a little down to the slightly-too-short microphone
And with an audience of a few hundred
I begin my protest
Disguised as entertainment
They don't realise what I'm saying,
Not yet,
Not while they're learning the tune,
And my message is still building,
But now -
Now they hear the words
As my backing cuts off
And I am left naked in my beliefs
And I sing, with power
With certainty and hope
For a future I can't change yet
So I can make someone's now
Better.

Emptiness has no place
In human souls
But creeps in,
And pulls hearts apart
From the inside
Without warning,
Without mercy,
We are without
Anything to hold onto,
Not even the bitter relief
Of crushing sadness,
Or the burn
Of anger can lock away
The overwhelming
Lack of...anything to feel
Anything to love
Anything to aim for.

Anything

I know when I'm lonely
All she has to do is hold me
And all of the pain fades away
As the rest of the world falls away.

I know when she holds me
She's never going to let go of me
We could run away
Just us, we could escape.

Then she holds me tighter
The flame between us brighter
Suddenly we're running free
Her and me: in our dreams
She's leading me to a fantasy.

Who cares about the storm clouds?
When this could be our breakout.
My hand runs through her hair
We could be anywhere
Because tonight
Is our night.

She's not a lighthouse,
I'd rather bask in her gaze,
She's my North Star, wherever we are
And she's pointing the right way
I'm following her
And when I'm her girl
I'll be home

Her eyes made me realise
How far I was away
When she called my name across the bay
And said, "You're going the wrong way"
I held my heart out,
I said, "You be the lighthouse,"
She said, "No, I don't want you to turn away."

She's not a lighthouse,
She's Ursa Minor A
Except she holds my hand
To remind me that
She's not 400 light-years away
When I'm lost at sea
She's leading me
Home.

My friends aren't therapists,
They're the reason I survive without one
But I need to learn not to
Lean on them
Or when they go
I'll lose balance and come
Crashing
Back
Down

I cannot exist
Away from
Friendship that holds me together
Just about, not because the glue
Won't stick but because
I lost some of the pieces already
And I yearn for such senseless
Wastes of time as
The days
I used to savour and
Used to keep me smiling just
just
About.

Ok I admit it
I'm hurting
I can't think like I used to
Can't smile without turning on each muscle
In the corners of my lip
I've lost faith in the future
And blamed myself for it
And killed myself over and
Over in my head
Just to pick apart my brain
And find some explanation for why
Every night is so
So
Heavy